Portable gas grills have become increasingly popular in recent years because of the interest in outdoor cooking. Along with the popularity of outdoor grilling it has also become popular to add additional flavor to food cooked on these grills by using various devices to burn smoking particles (e.g., wood chips that have been soaked in water). As the smoking particles are burned, they produce smoke which fills the grill chamber and penetrates the food, giving it additional flavor. There are several different devices that are used for the smoking process, such as, for example, a smoker attachment disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,102,028 that may be placed on top of the lava rocks or sear bars in existing grills or apparatuses that are built into a grill, as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,167,183, exclusively for the purpose of smoking food.
While these devices have received much consumer interest, they do not always produce the desired result in effectively providing the smoke required to flavor the food. This is primarily due to the amount of heat that is needed to ignite the smoking particles. Since these devices are not in direct contact with the heat source of the grill, the gas burners must be set at a high temperature in order to create the heat necessary to cause the smoking particles to ignite and begin to smolder. This can lead to cooking conditions that do not provide the intended smoke flavoring.
Some examples of what happens when using devices that are not in direct contact with the heat source are: 1) it takes a long time for the smoking particles to get hot enough to smolder which wastes fuel and adds extra time to the grilling process; 2) users begin to cook before the smoking particles begin to smolder—they either do not smolder or smolder too late in the cooking process causing little or no flavoring of the food; or 3) the food cooks too quickly due to the high level of heat needed for the smoking particles to ignite while not leaving enough time to absorb the smoke flavoring.